07/23/2004 | N2MO The Ocean-Monmouth ARC (OMARC) operated as 2A with a GOTA
station and VHF station as usual during this years Field Day.

However we really went all out with our tower and antenna
setup having three towers, two HF tri-band beams, a 40m beam,
and a 40m Half Rhombic and multiband dipole on HF and 6m
loop, 6m beam and 2m beam on VHF. The big 40 foot tower had
both the A4S and 2 element 40m beam for the CW station, with
the 2nd tribander on a 25 foot tower for the SSB station.

The Half Rhombic was strung from the largest tree a the park
with the center about 40 feet above ground, the legs were
each 67.5 feet long to the 300 ohm NI load resistors to the
ground rods which also acted as the end supports, the antenna
was 450 ohm ladder line fed to a 9:1 RF transformer with coax
then running under the pavillion. Next year we hope to be able
to get to the top of that tree and have a 80m Half Rhombic.

The setup crew, which consisted of most of the operators were
really tired after setup, which ran right into the start of
on-the-air time !

Also, using high end radios at all the stations this year
really helped on receive. We had a Yaesu FT-1000D on CW
and TS-930S on SSB and the GOTA station and an FT-736R on
6 and 2 meters. The guys on the GOTA station really had
fun, even when the electronic keyer failed and they were
forced to make CW contacts using a straight key for a few
hours !

We had great local press coverage and turnout of the local
officials during the event. Our NNJ SM Bill Hudzik, W2UDT
along with with Joyce Birmingham, KA2ANF representing the
ARRL drove 90 minutes to visit with us as we are the most
Southern ARRL Club in the section.

Many non-Amateurs as well as area Amateurs visited our site
during the event and learned quite a bit about the Amateur
Radio Service. Out public information table was near bare
by the end of the day and our various demonstrations caught
the interest of many non-hams that visited.
-- N2CKH